Björn Ulvaeus


Before ABBA

Björn Christian Ulvaeus was born in Gothenburg on April 25th 1945, and six years later moved to Vastervik. He started playing music with his first guitar by the age of 11. While he was still at school. Bjorn and three of his schoolmates formed his first group - West Bay Singers, which was made more formalised when they hired a Volvo and toured Europe.

When they returned, the group caught the attention of Bengt Bernhag, who was a partner of Stig Andersson in Polar Music. They were then signed up and the name was changed to the Hootenanny Singers in 1964, when they became professional after completeing their exams!  For two years they had constant success until in 1966 the authorities grew imaptient, and they had to go on military service. This didn't impede on their success as they were allowed to leave to continue their careers.

When they finished their military service in 1967 three of the members went off to study at Gothenburg University, but Bjorn opted to study at Stockholm University. It was while he was in Stockholm that he stengthened his friendship with Benny Andersson who he first met in 1966. They then started writing songs together for Benny's Group, The Hep Stars and then performed together under the banner of Benny & Björn from 1969 - 1972.

After ABBA

In December 1982, Benny and Bjorn met up with Tim Rice to discuss writing a musical, and the following January there were definite proposals to do so, and this musical would appear in 1984 as Chess.

The concept album was released in November 1984 where it immediately reached number 10 in the album charts, and it spawned two hit singles plus one failure. The two hit singles were I Knew Him So Well sung by Elaine Page and Barbara Dickson, and the other was One Night in Bangkok sung by Murray Head which reached #3 and the former got to Number One.  In 1986 Chess opened in the West End of London where it received unanimous critical acclaim. However, over the Atlantic things weren't
quite so simple, as when Chess opened in Broadway it was a failure, mainly due to the fact that critics hated it (especially the New York Times).  Despite this, Chess ran in the UK until 1990, where since then it has been touring around the UK.

In October 1995 it was the grand opening of Benny and Bjorn's new musical 'Kristina från Duvemäla' which opened to critical success in Malmö.

April see’s the opening of the new musical by Benny and Bjorn aptly named Mamma Mia, at the Prince Edward Theatre in London. The musical is based around 27 ABBA songs. Click Here to go to the official Mamma Mia Site

TO BE CONTINUED...........